A California-based warehouse grocer plans to open a new chain of discount stores along the Front Range.

Smart & Final Stores has acquired five vacant Albertsons sites and will open SmartCo Foods outlets this summer.

The SmartCo line is a new venture for Commerce, Calif.-based Smart & Final. The stores will be larger than any other of the firm’s grocery-store chains, offering more produce, meats and bulk food products.

SmartCo will hire about 100 employees for each of the five new stores and will establish a regional corporate office in metro Denver.

Stores will be located at sites in Denver, Littleton, Centennial and Longmont that Albertsons vacated over the past three years in a series of closures.

The SmartCo chain will provide “the quality and variety that your favorite supermarket offers, plus the bulk assortment and savings of your favorite warehouse club store. You can buy a little or a lot, large or small sizes,” said George Golleher, chief executive of Smart & Final.

There will be no membership fees or club cards required to shop at the stores, he said.

Smart & Final was founded in 1871. The majority of its 275 stores in the western U.S. cater largely to institutional, restaurant, food-service and business customers that buy in bulk. In 2008 it launched “Smart & Final Extra” outlets with an orientation toward household buyers.

Most of its stores range in size from 17,000 to 35,000 square feet. SmartCo stores will be 40,000 to 61,000 square feet.

“Smart & Final is striving to provide a value proposition,” said senior analyst George Van Horn of business research firm IBIS World. “They’re not on the high end of retailing — more on the value end.”

The chain in some ways is comparable to Costco or Wal-Mart, but with more focus on food items and less on general merchandise, he said.

Smart & Final was acquired in 2007 for $813 million by investment firm Apollo Management. Now privately owned, the grocer no longer reports its financial results, but in 2006 its revenue was $2.1 billion.

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